Customer Reviews

Win in the Opening!: Opening Mistakes and How to Punish Them (Progress in Chess)

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This is an attractive book in soft cover format (192 pages). It is written by a very experienced chess writer, who, in addition to decent material, uses a very colorful language, using frequently chess jargon and idioms.

I remember in the beginning of my chess playing career, carrying his book on the same subject with me to many junior tournaments. The idea was, that when preparing for a game or studying a certain opening, one can consult the book and quickly find tactical tricks common for that opening.

For example, if you play Caro Can as Black, you must know 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2(c3) dxe 4.Ne4 Nbd7 (planning Ngf6) 5.Qe2!? (not too wise to block the bishop on f1, but...) Ngf6 (continue normal plan) 6.Nd6# - several experienced players have fallen in this trap in the past, but now even beginner knows this, thanks to the books, like Neishtadt's.

Well, remembering my childhood experience, I was very excited when I knew that this book is coming out. I even notified my mailing list subscribers about it.

However, once I got chance to read through this book, I have found the following flaws, that if addressed, would make this book so much better.

All of the examples are categorized by tactical motif and not by the Opening. So, if you are studying a particular opening, you should continuously flip through the pages to find tricks for that opening. Index helps, but the process is not user friendly.

Game materials & Examples - Outdated for this book, released in 2002, the latest games are from the mid 90s.

Direct word for word translation of russian idioms makes reading comments somewhat difficult. This was confirmed by several of my american born students.

Overall, good book for beginners learning Openings and basic tactics.

Good luck!
Copyrighted by me.